The Fifth Risk The Fifth Risk

The Fifth Risk

    • 4.1 • 58 Ratings
    • $19.99
    • $19.99

Publisher Description

The New York Times Bestseller, with a new afterword


"[Michael Lewis’s] most ambitious and important book." —Joe Klein, New York Times

Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed. The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.

GENRE
Politics & Current Events
RELEASED
2018
October 2
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
256
Pages
PUBLISHER
W. W. Norton & Company
SELLER
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
SIZE
3.4
MB

Customer Reviews

Rest of Canada ,

Good book but lost its focus at end

I thought that generally this was a good book that revealed some very disturbing examples about how the Trump administration is managing it’s departments and agencies from a political, as opposed to an operational perspective. It is frightening to learn how this singular re-focus has the potential of reducing or eliminating many of the excellent US government programs and information (data) sources, for political (and politically driven philosophic)reasons alone. The fact that (as detailed in the book) most of the Trump appointees have absolutely no clue about the nature of the public service they have been appointed, or their goals; and the reality that they do not appear to really care about them; or have appropriate backgrounds to run the government venture, is both disconcerting and disheartening.

As a Canadian, I have perceived this to be the case from anecdotal evidence I have been made aware of, but this book confirms it to be true, with real examples. The Canadian, Merit Based Public Service is a superior model as senior portfolio’s are generally not staffed with “political hacks” every election cycle. A much more professional staffing model based on the British Parliamentary system.

I thought the book was pretty good but seemed to lose it’s thematic focus about 3/4 of the way through the book. But overall a very interesting read.

dantheLEGOman ,

Somewhat disappointed...

First chapter & half of the second one are fascinating - especially caught my attention what describing what is the "fifth risk".
Rest of the book meanders into story-telling, only loosely related to the subject with no concluding remarks

More Books by Michael Lewis

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
2014
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
2011
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
2016
Liar's Poker Liar's Poker
2010
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
2021
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
2023

Customers Also Bought

A Very Stable Genius A Very Stable Genius
2020
I Alone Can Fix It I Alone Can Fix It
2021
Peril Peril
2021
Confidence Man Confidence Man
2022
It Was All a Lie It Was All a Lie
2020
Landslide Landslide
2021